McNamara, Rumsfeld and the Fog of War

There is a global awareness now on the need to fix Islam - but darkness prevails on the best method - a solution that is simple and sure will evolve from here.Sounds far fetched ? Just consider the peculiar case of 1 million deaths in the Iran Iraq war- this was no Jihad with Kafir and hence all those dead went to hell for no fault of theirs except that they had Saddam as "boss" - avoidable case of bad direction by leadership , which brought ruin to followers!

A nuclear attack on middle east from either US or Israel canoot be ruled out at all - it appears to be very central to planners of Islamic life. As all muslims prey 5 times a day for death in jihad and seat in heaven ; this is the most practical way for a benevoilent & merciful kafir like Bush to delivery a heavenly martyrdom in jihad to all muslims on equal footing.... so that at the Allah's brothel - stock of 72 goats/ martyr can be enjoyed equally by each muslim.

The second paragraph on Page 1 contains the comment:

The U.S. intervention in Vietnam was to prop up South Vietnam against aggression by the North.

. . . without clarifying that this was US propaganda used to justify the invasion. Durring the 60's, the assertation was made that the 1954 Geneva agreement split the country into two political entities. IIRC, the "Pentagon Papers", reported that South Vietnam was an artifact of US foreign policy, and reprinted the '54 agreement that clearly states that it does not split the country into two political groups.

What we represented as a defense was theirfore actually an invasion of a sovereign nation.

The second paragraph on Page 1 contains the comment:

"The U.S. intervention in Vietnam was to prop up South Vietnam against aggression by the North."

. . . without clarifying that this was US propaganda used to justify the invasion. Durring the 60's, the assertation was made that the 1954 Geneva agreement split the country into two political entities. IIRC, the "Pentagon Papers", reported that South Vietnam was an artifact of US foreign policy, and reprinted the '54 agreement that clearly states that it does not split the country into two political groups.

What we represented as a defense was theirfore actually an invasion of a sovereign nation.

The failure to mention Dick Cheney's role in changing the dynamics of the entire conflict in South Asia is astonhishing. Rumsfield there had a chance.

I never blamed Bush or Rumsfeld because they're both idiots. The only person with the intelligence to know what was being done and the ramifications thereof was Cheney.

As much as one might dislike Rumsfeld, he didn't kill 58,000 Americans in a war he knew couldn't be won. And he didn't conduct a war in a manner that seemed to draw from every defeat ever suffered in military history and try to fold each and every one of them into his strategy in Iraq. Whatever you might say about him, he made our military more lethal, faster and less bureaucratic and he didn't make decisions about weapons procurement that set the Air Force back thirty years.

Rumsfeld was no McNamara. Not even close.

I doubt Rumsfeld suffers the same fate, as he has given no impression whatsoever over the years that he has the intelligence or integrity to have a conscience that would make him wonder about his sinister decisions. Nope, someone at the pearly gates will have to tell him he was a damn fool as he is sent away since he will never realize it on his own.

How original...another hit job from a lefty at the lefty raq NEWSWEEK trashing a Republican and calling it news. You insult your readers everytime you claim you aren't a propaganda wing of the DNC.

This article fails to address three facts Rumsfeld, and Bush, never bothered to consider: (1) we had no business toppling Sadam in the first place; (2) by doing so we took our eye off the real problem, Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan; and (3) the real threat was always Iran.

We fought the wrong war, for the wrong reasons, cranked up the national debt, plunged our country into a recession, damaged our credibility globally, left our Army badly over-extended, and totally ignored the real threat.

Rumsfeld and Bush/Cheney, just like McNamara and LBJ, deserve the scorn and contempt they have earned.

McNamara seemed to have studied every military defeat in human history and tried to fold them into our strategy in Vietnam. He set the Air Force back thirty years and was an arrogant and obnoxious character by any standard.

To reach the level of casualties in Iraq that we suffered in Vietnam, we'd have to stay in that country for about 150 years. And though it wasn't a necessary war, we still won it. And while we didn't capture Osama Bin Laden, we did topple the Taliban with nothing more than a few special forces and casualties that were but a tiny fraction of those suffered in other conflicts.

Rumsfeld could be an infuriating character, but he was no Robert McNamara. Robert McNamara was a disaster of the first magnitude. The best thing he ever did in life was leave it.